Tennessee’s Fighting Parson

Of all the men arrested after the Nov. 8, 1861, bridge-bombing plot in eastern Tennessee, perhaps none was as surprising as William Gannaway “Parson” Brownlow. As late as 1861, Brownlow was nationally renowned as the South’s — and slavery’s — most ardent defender.

A fiery, ubiquitous speaker and writer, he decried “blue-bellied Yankees” and “vile Abolitionists,” whom he called “freedom shriekers.” In the well-publicized journal Philadelphia, Brownlow defended slavery as ordained by God and a civilizing influence on intellectually inferior Africans. Slavery was so good, he said, that all of Africa should be colonized so that all the inhabitants could benefit from the peculiar institution. Frederick Douglass once challenged him to a debate, but Brownlow declined: he refused to share the stage with a black man. He did, however, agree to debate the radical Garrisonian Abraham Pryne, but only after verifying that Pryne was, indeed, white.

But while Brownlow detested abolitionism, he passionately loved the Union and felt even greater hatred toward secessionists, vowing to “fight them till hell freezes over, then fight them on the ice.” Strange as it sounds, this was far from a unique point of view: Brownlow’s anti-abolitionist, pro-Union opinions were shared by the majority of East Tennesseans. He simply shouted them louder than most.

Brownlow was born in Virginia in 1805, was orphaned at the age of 11, joined the Methodist Church, became an itinerant minister and eventually settled in Elizabethton, Tenn., near the Virginia border. Upon marriage he realized he needed more stable employment to support his family, and so he went into journalism as the owner and editor of Brownlow’s Whig.

Fancying himself a modern Isaiah, Brownlow declared on the masthead, “Cry Aloud and Spare Not.” He wrote scathing harangues excoriating all things he despised, including, but not limited to, Presbyterians, Baptists, Catholics, Mormons, Democrats, Republicans, gamblers, drinkers, Irish immigrants, cheating husbands, African-Americans, secessionists and abolitionists. Brownlow, not known for his own good looks, cruelly wrote of the abolitionist author Harriet Beecher Stowe, “She is ugly as Original sin — an abomination in the eyes of civilized people. A tall, course, vulgar-looking woman — stoop shouldered with a long yellow neck, and a long peaked nose — through which she speaks.”

Library of CongressWilliam “Parson” Brownlow

Brownlow’s archenemy, however, was his fellow East Tennessean Andrew Johnson, whom he attacked “on every stump in Tennessee” for a quarter century before the war, calling him an “unmitigated liar” and “villainous coward.” The roots of Brownlow’s anti-Johnson hatred are lost today, though it may have been a matter of simple political competitiveness: he unsuccessfully opposed the future president for Congress in 1844.

Despite their mutual enmity, in 1861 Brownlow and Johnson joined forces to oppose Tennessee’s secessionist movement. Their efforts failed, as West and Middle Tennessee secessionist votes carried the majority, dragging the decidedly pro-Union East Tennessee into the Confederacy. When the Confederacy asked him to serve as a chaplain, the “Fighting Parson” made it clear he would not stand with the South. “When I shall have made up my mind to go to hell, I will cut my own throat and go direct, and not travel round by way of the Southern Confederacy,” he replied. He relentlessly attacked the new nation in the Whig, writing, “I would as soon be engaged in importing the plague from the East as in helping to build up a Southern Confederacy upon the ruins of the American Constitution.” By the end of 1861 the Parson found himself in prison under a charge of treason, with execution his possible, even likely, fate.

Still, his fame and oratorical skills — not to mention his well-known anti-abolitionist stance — convinced Confederate officials to try to turn him to their side. Felix Zollicoffer, the Confederate commander of East Tennessee, believed that unionists like Brownlow and Johnson had drummed up the opposition, and that without their meddling the general population could be won over. (East Tennesseans disabused Zollicoffer of that notion when they insisted on nominating and electing congressmen to represent them in Washington.)

After the dismal conditions in the Knoxville jail led to a deterioration in Brownlow’s health, Confederates offered him release if he would take the oath of allegiance to the South. Holding fast to his convictions, the Parson refused and prepared himself for hanging.

Instead, the Confederacy decided to escort Brownlow to the Kentucky border. Taking advantage of his newfound freedom, Brownlow set out on a multicity speaking tour, educating Northern audiences about the deprivations he had suffered as a political prisoner and telling them that most Southerners were lukewarm secessionists. In exile, Brownlow compiled the runaway best seller, “Parson Brownlow’s Book,” consisting primarily of his editorials from the Whig, his jailhouse diary and correspondence. After publication the Parson promoted his book and the idea that the Union army could easily defeat the Confederates in East Tennessee.

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By 1863 much of Middle Tennessee was under Union occupation and the Confederate state government had ceased to exist, and Brownlow was able to return to Tennessee. When federals gained control of Knoxville that fall, Brownlow eagerly returned to his mountain home to continue his vitriolic attacks on the Confederacy. His lucrative speaking tours across the occupied Upper South and his continued book profits provided ample capital to reestablish the newspaper, renamed, not so subtly, the Whig and Rebel Ventilator.

In March 1865 Tennessee Unionists chose Brownlow to succeed Andrew Johnson as governor. Though he never explicitly renounced his anti-abolitionist beliefs, he further antagonized Tennessee Confederates by working with Congressional Republicans to pass the 14th Amendment, which allowed Tennessee to rejoin the Union and avoid Radical Reconstruction.

After serving two terms as governor, the Parson served one term in the United States Senate. He returned to Knoxville in poor health, intending to resume his newspaper work. He died on April 29, 1877.

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One-hundred-and-fifty years ago, Americans went to war with themselves. Disunion revisits and reconsiders America’s most perilous period — using contemporary accounts, diaries, images and historical assessments to follow the Civil War as it unfolded.